Answers.comhttp://www.businessinsider.com/category/answerscom
en-usSun, 02 Aug 2015 17:11:22 -0400Sun, 02 Aug 2015 17:11:22 -0400The latest news on Answers.com from Business Insiderhttp://static3.businessinsider.com/assets/images/bilogo-250x36-wide-rev.pngBusiness Insiderhttp://www.businessinsider.com
http://www.businessinsider.com/10-things-january-3-2014-110 Tech Things You Need To Know This Morninghttp://www.businessinsider.com/10-things-january-3-2014-1
Fri, 03 Jan 2014 07:18:00 -0500Alyson Shontell
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/52c680c0eab8eaa01539f0fb-1065-799/manhattan-new-york-snow-unicycle-1.jpg" border="0" alt="manhattan new york snow unicycle" /></p><p>Happy Friday. Here's the tech news you need to know right now.</p>
<ol>
<li><strong><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/snapchat-phone-number-leak-statement-2014-1">Snapchat finally released a statement about how 4.6 million usernames and phone numbers were hacked from its app.</a>&nbsp;</strong>Hackers used the Find Friends feature to dig up user information. The statement does not include an apology.</li>
<li><strong><a href="http://www.pcworld.com/article/2083503/wearable-tech-at-ces-2014-prepare-your-body-parts-for-an-onslaught-of-options.html">CES 2014 is next week.</a></strong>&nbsp;This year, it's all about wearable technology.&nbsp;</li>
<li><strong><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/woman-facebook-selfie-attack-2014-1">A Kentucky woman posted a horrifying selfie on Facebook that may have saved her life.</a></strong> Her husband allegedly attacked her and tore out the phone line in her home, so she posted a picture of her bloody face with the words, "Help please anyone."</li>
<li><strong><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/new-years-eve-death-uber-statement-2014-1">A 6-year-old girl was hit and killed on New Years Eve by a driver in Uber's network.</a>&nbsp;</strong>Uber has <a href="http://blog.uber.com/2014/01/01/statement-on-new-years-eve-accident/">deactivated his account.</a></li>
<li><strong><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/bitcoin-trader-job-2014-1">"Bitcoin trader" is now officially a job at a hedge fund.</a></strong></li>
<li><strong><a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/01/how-netflix-reverse-engineered-hollywood/282679/">Netflix uses 76,897 micro-genres to make extremely specific movie and TV show recommendations for its 40 million users.</a> </strong>Here's how Netflix reverse-engineered Hollywood.</li>
<li><strong><a href="http://recode.net/2014/01/02/its-not-a-church-its-just-an-apple-store/">Re/Code's Walt Mossberg tells Apple fans to calm down.</a></strong> "It's not a church, it's just an Apple store," he writes of their cult-like following.</li>
<li><strong><a href="http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57616496-93/facebook-sued-for-allegedly-intercepting-private-messages/">Two men in California have filed a class action lawsuit against Facebook for allegedly scanning their private messages to mine data and ultimately profit.</a></strong></li>
<li><strong><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/fireeye-buys-mandiant-for-1-billion-2014-1">Two massive cyber security companies have merged: FireEye just bought Mandiant for $1 billion.</a></strong></li>
<li><strong><a href="http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/01/03/new-york-today-live-snowstorm-updates/?smid=tw-share&amp;_r=0">The New York Times is live-blogging the east coast's on-going blizzard.</a> </strong>Eight to ten inches are expected in New York City, although other areas have been hit with 20 &ndash; 25 inches of snow. <a href="http://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/Noreaster-Tri-State-Forecast-Snow-Storm-New-York-New-Jersey-Connecticut-Inches-Foot-Weather-238427051.html?_osource=SocialFlowTwt_NYBrand">JFK airport is closed</a> today until 8:30 AM.</li>
</ol><p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/10-things-january-3-2014-1#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/10-things-december-23-2013-1210 Tech Things You Need To Know This Morninghttp://www.businessinsider.com/10-things-december-23-2013-12
Mon, 23 Dec 2013 07:04:00 -0500Alyson Shontell
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static1.businessinsider.com/image/52b8257b69bedd1a1a759570-640-/tim-cook-china-6.jpg" border="0" alt="tim cook china" width="640" /></p><p>Happy holidays! Here's what's happening in tech.</p>
<ol>
<li><strong><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/tim-cook-2014-memo-2013-12">Apple has 'big plans' for&nbsp; 2014, according to a leaked memo from its CEO Tim Cook.</a></strong></li>
<li><strong><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/apple-iphone-on-china-mobile-2013-12">Apple's iPhone will soon be available on China Mobile, the largest wireless carrier in the world with more than 760 million subscribers.</a></strong> This is Apple's biggest move in China yet.</li>
<li><strong><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-saves-stuff-you-start-typing-and-the-delete-2013-12">Facebook knows when you've typed something, even if you delete it.</a>*</strong></li>
<li><strong><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/justine-sacco-apologizes-for-tweet-2013-12">Justine Sacco, the IAC PR Director who was fired for writing an offensive tweet, has apologized.</a>&nbsp;</strong></li>
<li><strong><a href="http://www.cracked.com/blog/7-reasons-tsa-sucks-a-security-experts-perspective/">An airport's former head of security explains why the TSA is terrible.</a></strong> "The TSA couldn't protect you from a 6-year-old with a water balloon," he says.&nbsp;</li>
<li><strong><a href="http://www.esquire.com/features/americans-2012/elon-musk-interview-1212">There's a long profile of Elon Musk from an earlier issue of Esquire magazine that's being passed around.</a>&nbsp;</strong></li>
<li><strong><a href="http://money.cnn.com/2013/12/19/technology/google-ventures.pr.fortune/">Here's a behind-the-scenes look at Google Ventures, which has backed startups like Blue Bottle Coffee and Uber.</a></strong>&nbsp;</li>
<li><strong><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/what-is-dogecoin-2013-12">Dogecoin is Bitcoin for the average person and it's rapidly gaining popularity.</a></strong> Here's how a thing that started as a joke became the hottest digital currency in the world.&nbsp;</li>
<li><strong><a href="http://techcrunch.com/2013/12/22/qa-platform-answers-com-raises-more-cash-buys-customer-experience-analytics-company-foresee-for-over-200m/">Answers.com has raised money and bought a customer experience company, ForSee, for $200 million.</a></strong></li>
<li><strong><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/chinese-train-doesnt-stop-at-stations-2013-12">A Chinese concept train doesn't need to stop at stations to pick up passengers.</a></strong></li>
</ol>
<p><strong><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;">*</span></strong><em><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;">An earlier version of this post said Facebook</span>&nbsp;saves everything you type, even if you delete it. Facebook actually just notes when you've typed something and deleted it, but doesn't capture what was written.</em></p><p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/10-things-december-23-2013-12#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/chart-of-the-day-mobile-audience-for-sites-2013-2Here's The Sites That Are Really Benefiting From Mobile (DIS, P, FB, GOOG, AAPL, AMZN)http://www.businessinsider.com/chart-of-the-day-mobile-audience-for-sites-2013-2
Mon, 25 Feb 2013 17:03:00 -0500Jay Yarow
<p><a class="hidden_link" href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/comscore">comScore</a> has <a href="http://www.comscore.com/Insights/Presentations_and_Whitepapers/2013/2013_Mobile_Future_in_Focus">a new report on the state of mobile</a>. In it, it reports which sites are getting "incremental" mobile users compared to the desktop. For comScore, an incremental user is one that is coming exclusively to mobile and not via the PC. In other words, it's an entirely new user. We've charted out the sites that are gaining the biggest number of mobile only users.</p>
<p><img src="http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/512bd79769bedd263e000002-618-/sai-cotd-022513.jpg" border="0" alt="Chart of the day shows percent incremental audience via mobile for digital properties, february 2013" width="618" /></p><p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/chart-of-the-day-mobile-audience-for-sites-2013-2#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/answers-corporation-buyout-2011-61: Buy Company; 2: Fire Everyone; 3: Profit!http://www.businessinsider.com/answers-corporation-buyout-2011-6
Mon, 27 Jun 2011 15:05:49 -0400Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static5.businessinsider.com/image/4e08b1c5cadcbba605010000-400-/montgomery-burns-gun-simpsons.jpg" border="0" alt="montgomery burns gun simpsons" width="400" /></p><p>In what looks like an effort to confirm every bad clich&eacute; about private equity funds, it seems that one of the first thing Summit Partners is doing (via portfolio company AFCV Holdings) after <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/quo-wha-answerscom-exits-for-127-million-in-cash-2011-2">buying Answers.com for $127 million</a> is firing the majority of the people.&nbsp;</p>
<p>45 out of 65 employees out of the company's offices in Israel were fired, and it seems that some of the 25 jobs in the US are in jeopardy as well. Answers.com also plans to discontinue features and mobile apps.&nbsp;</p>
<p>There may be a good way to look at this, but it's hard to see. Maybe there's a grand strategic plan to get Answers.com in a whole new direction and that requires firing the previous team. But what it looks like is milking the company for the cash that comes from all that SEO traffic.</p>
<p>(Via <a href="http://techcrunch.com/2011/06/27/answers-com-gets-gutted-by-its-new-owner-massive-layoffs-ceo-and-cto-out/">TechCrunch</a>)</p>
<p><strong>Don't Miss: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/check-out-mahalos-hilariously-useless-guide-to-playing-the-xylophone-2011-2">Mahalo's Hilariously Useless Guide To Playing The Xylophone&nbsp;&rarr;</a></strong></p><p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/answers-corporation-buyout-2011-6#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/stackexchange-growth-2011-4Q&A Network StackExchange Is Blowing Up (ANSW)http://www.businessinsider.com/stackexchange-growth-2011-4
Wed, 13 Apr 2011 02:59:00 -0400Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
<p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/stack-overflow" class="hidden_link">Stack Exchange</a>, the startup that runs a network of Q&amp;A sites on topics like programming, photography and cooking, is still growing like gangbusters.</p>
<p><a href="http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2011/04/stack-exchange-traffic-still-growing/">In a blog post</a>, co-founder/CEO <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/joel-spolsky" class="hidden_link">Joel Spolsky</a> writes that <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/quantcast" class="hidden_link">Quantcast</a> ranks them as a top 300 US site (ranked 255) with 14 million monthly uniques, and their internal <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/google" class="hidden_link">Google</a> Analytics numbers says they have 24 million monthly uniques across their network. Traffic overall grew 18% last month.</p>
<p>Spolsky also slams Compete.com, which has them at less than 1 million uniques and declining.</p>
<p>As Q&amp;A sites like <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/quora" class="hidden_link">Quora</a> get huge hype but little visible results it's nice to see Stack Exchange be visible about their results and actually growing fast and attracting real people. <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/answerscom" class="hidden_link">Answers.com</a> recently sold for a low number compared to its traffic because its ad inventory is low quality, but because Stack Exchange only has Q&amp;A sites over verticals where it has enough people giving specific answers to questions, it should be able to monetize much better.</p>
<p>Here's Stack Exchange's Quantcast growth chart:</p>
<p><img src="http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/4da548e64bd7c8a81a0a0000-610-/stack-exchange-quantcast-traffic.png" border="0" alt="stack exchange quantcast traffic" width="610" /></p>
<p><strong>Don't Miss: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/exclusive-qa-quora-may-be-turning-down-billion-dollar-offers-but-its-still-losing-to-this-guy-2011-2">Our Exclusive Q&amp;A With Stack Exchange CEO Joel Spolsky &rarr;</a></strong></p><p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/stackexchange-growth-2011-4#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/aol-and-yahoo-out-of-the-running-answerscoms-angry-shareholders-say-theyll-make-their-own-bid-2011-2AOL And Yahoo Out Of The Running, Answers.com's Angry Shareholders Say They'll Make Their Own Bid (AOL, YHOO, ANSW)http://www.businessinsider.com/aol-and-yahoo-out-of-the-running-answerscoms-angry-shareholders-say-theyll-make-their-own-bid-2011-2
Tue, 08 Feb 2011 17:46:00 -0500Nicholas Carlson
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static5.businessinsider.com/image/4d238a25ccd1d53f3d1a0000/angry-dog.jpg" border="0" alt="Angry dog" /></p><p>Last week, a large group of Answers.com shareholders &ndash; led by Outboard Investments &ndash; told us <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/answerscom-shareholders-are-furious-over-sale-promise-to-block-it-2011-2">they think management is selling the company for a price to low</a>, shipping it off to <a href="../../quo-wha-answerscom-exits-for-127-million-in-cash-2011-2">AFCV Holdings for $127 million.</a></p>
<p>Now Outboard tells us it's talking to a private investor and that it plans to make a competing bid to take Answers.com private.</p>
<p>This Outboard source says it will join with its new partner will buy Answers.com at $12 per share &ndash; up $1.50 from the offer management presented shareholders last week.</p>
<p><strong>Caution:</strong> We don't know who this new investor is. We are only reporting that Outboard <strong>says</strong> its going to make a bid.</p>
<p>Told about the effort, Answers.com CEO Bob Rosenschein said, "the board of directors takes with extreme seriousness all of our fiduciary responsibilities."</p>
<p>Meanwhile, we've begun to understand why Answers.com management accepted a price its shareholders might think it is too low.</p>
<p>First of all, let's be honest: Answers.com inventory is junk ad inventory. One source close to the company even compared unfavorably to content farm Demand Media's inventory.</p>
<p>Secondly, lots of Internet companies with big money to spend have already looked at possibly buying Answers.com and decided not to. One source close to the company says acquirers who eventually said no include <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/iac" class="hidden_link">IAC</a>, <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/yahoo" class="hidden_link">Yahoo</a>, and Announce Media.</p>
<p>As recently as last weekend, some shareholders were holding out hope that AOL would come in with a bigger bid. They hoped AOL CEO Tim Armstrong would want to buy the company and install his old Google colleague Patrick Keane as boss. Keane worked with Answers.com for a bit last year after selling Associated Content to Yahoo for $100 million.</p>
<p>Those hopes looked dashed when AOL announced that it would spend almost half its $750 million in cash buying Huffington Post for $315 million. Additionally, we've heard Keane isn't very interested in the job anyway &ndash; not without getting some major equity upside.</p>
<p>Another reason management may have agreed to a price lower than shareholders have been hoping for is Answers.com's dependency on <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/google" class="hidden_link">Google</a>. One source said Answers is 90% dependent on Google for traffic, and that revenues took a big hit when Google recently adjusted its search algorithm to fight search spam.</p>
<p>The fact that Answers.com has 80% of its employees on the other side of the ocean is also said to have scared some people off.</p>
<p>Finally, look at Answers.com's volatile stock price. The share's price sank below $5.00 just last August. Think shareholders would've been happy about $10.50 then?</p><p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/aol-and-yahoo-out-of-the-running-answerscoms-angry-shareholders-say-theyll-make-their-own-bid-2011-2#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p>